A deaf refugee from Bhutan impresses in Canada with her enthusiasm

OTTAWA, Canada, September 29 (UNHCR) – Moving half-way across the world to an entirely new country and culture could seem daunting to a deaf teenage refugee from Bhutan.

But Pabi Rizal says it's the best thing that ever happened to her. And she'll tell you in English and American Sign Language – both of which she learned in an astonishing three months after she, her parents and two deaf siblings came to the Canadian capital just over two years ago, when she was 18.

"I believe deaf refugees can do anything hearing people do, except hear," she says through a sign language interpreter in her Language Instruction for Newcomers to Canada classroom at St. Joseph's Adult School in Ottawa. Clearly excited about being interviewed by UNHCR, she's exuberant and outgoing, her face only turning sombre when she recalls refugee friends she left behind in the Beldangi camp in eastern Nepal.

After 17 years in a refugee camp of thatched huts – her parents fled Bhutan soon after she was born – Pabi was enormously impressed by things most Canadians likely take for granted.

"Wow, there is electricity everywhere and all the time," says Pabi, her eyes lighting up at the thought of being able to study at night and use her computer whenever she wants. "Here at school, I keep on being amazed at the flashing fire alarm," she adds.

At first astonished by the high-tech visual learning aids at her new school, Pabi quickly mastered video phoning. She now uses Skype to train other deaf Bhutanese refugees around the world. She is happy to explain how to use the equipment in the classroom, her enthusiasm inspiring visitors just as electricity illuminates Pabi's new world.

Pabi and her family are some of the 5,000 Bhutanese refugees from camps in Nepal coming to Canada under a five-year resettlement programme that began in 2007. More than 50,000 refugees have already left camps in Nepal for eight different countries in one of the world's largest resettlement programmes.

Contrary to public perception, American Sign Language is not related to English, so Pabi had two new skills to learn when she arrived in Canada. But after just three months she did well enough to get a job as a warehouse attendant in a department store in an Ottawa suburb.

She's grateful for the opportunity to study in the morning and work in the afternoon, and has applied for admission to the Belleville School for the Deaf in hopes of becoming a teacher of others with hearing problems.

Pabi clearly sees her future as lying in this hospitable North American country. "I want to stay in Canada," she says. "Canada has given me and my family empowerment, equality and respect."

Resettlement from Tunisia's Choucha Camp

Between February and October 2011, more than 1 million people crossed into Tunisia to escape conflict in Libya. Most were migrant workers who made their way home or were repatriated, but the arrivals included refugees and asylum-seekers who could not return home or live freely in Tunisia.

UNHCR has been trying to find solutions for these people, most of whom ended up in the Choucha Transit Camp near Tunisia's border with Libya. Resettlement remains the most viable solution for those registered as refugees at Choucha before a cut-off date of December 1, 2011.

As of late April, 14 countries had accepted 2,349 refugees for resettlement, 1,331 of whom have since left Tunisia. The rest are expected to leave Choucha later this year. Most have gone to Australia, Norway and the United States. But there are a more than 2,600 refugees and almost 140 asylum-seekers still in the camp. UNHCR continues to advocate with resettlement countries to find solutions for them.

Resettlement from Tunisia's Choucha Camp

Health crisis in South Sudan

There are roughly 105,000 refugees in South Sudan's Maban County. Many are at serious health risk. UNHCR and its partners are working vigorously to prevent and contain the outbreak of malaria and several water-borne diseases.

Most of the refugees, especially children and the elderly, arrived at the camps in a weakened condition. The on-going rains tend to make things worse, as puddles become incubation areas for malaria-bearing mosquitoes. Moderately malnourished children and elderly can easily become severely malnourished if they catch so much as a cold.

The problems are hardest felt in Maban County's Yusuf Batil camp, where as many as 15 per cent of the children under 5 are severely malnourished.

UNHCR and its partners are doing everything possible to prevent and combat illness. In Yusuf Batil camp, 200 community health workers go from home to home looking educating refugees about basic hygene such as hand washing and identifying ill people as they go. Such nutritional foods as Plumpy'nut are being supplied to children who need them. A hospital dedicated to the treatment of cholera has been established. Mosquito nets have been distributed throughout the camps in order to prevent malaria.

Health crisis in South Sudan

Abdu finds his voice in Germany

When bombs started raining down on Aleppo, Syria, in 2012, the Khawan family had to flee. According to Ahmad, the husband of Najwa and father of their two children, the town was in ruins within 24 hours.

The family fled to Lebanon where they shared a small flat with Ahmad's two brothers and sisters and their children. Ahmad found sporadic work which kept them going, but he knew that in Lebanon his six-year-old son, Abdu, who was born deaf, would have little chance for help.

The family was accepted by Germany's Humanitarian Assistance Programme and resettled into the small central German town of Wächtersbach, near Frankfurt am Main. Nestled in a valley between two mountain ranges and a forest, the village has an idyllic feel.

A year on, Abdu has undergone cochlear implant surgery for the second time. He now sports two new hearing aids which, when worn together, allow him to hear 90 per cent. He has also joined a regular nursery class, where he is learning for the first time to speak - German in school and now Arabic at home. Ahmed is likewise studying German in a nearby village, and in two months he will graduate with a language certificate and start looking for work. He says that he is proud at how quickly Abdu is learning and integrating.

Abdu finds his voice in Germany

Celebrating 10 years of refugee resettlement

Iraq: Uprooted and living in a warehouse

An Iraqi man who turned down resettlement to the U.S. in 2006 tells how it feels now to be a "refugee" in his own country, in limbo, hoping to restart life in another Iraqi city.

Emergency Resettlement – One Family's Journey to a New Life

After their family fled Syria, young brothers Mohamed and Youssef still were not safe. Unable to access medical treatment for serious heart and kidney conditions, they and the rest of their family were accepted for emergency resettlement to Norway.